Reader

Internet scams have reached incredible levels in the past few years. A recent AP-NORC survey found that 58% of American adults receive daily scam attempts. That number jumps all the way up to 92% for people who receive them on a monthly basis. That is an enormous amount of scamming!

That said, it's no surprise that the reader who requested this wants some advice. Scammers are rapidly developing new tactics using AI. Gone are the simple days of a man with a thick accent claiming to be John from Microsoft; AI allows bad actors to look and sound however they please.

So what can you do? Here's my advice for staying safe from scams.

Red flag number one: Urgency

Fear is a powerful motivator. People from all walks of life are prone to panic in tense situations (yours truly included). Scammers exploit this to try and force you to make decisions under duress when your reasoning skills are less than optimal.

Woah! He's giving away $5,600 to only the fastest people! You've probably seen this elsewhere with scams that urge you to verify a transaction RIGHT NOW. But let's step back for a second and think about it.

It's fairly rare in the typical world of business for anything to be urgent. If it wasn't, banks would operate like emergency rooms instead of closing every time the moon is in waxing gibbous phase. Tons of organizations still accept documents and checks via mail – the IRS is a fantastic example. If you get a scam text or e-mail claiming that the IRS needs you to take immediate action, make yourself pause for a minute. If the IRS lets you pay via mailing a money order, how urgent could it really be?

Don't allow yourself to feel threatened by text or e-mail messages. If something is really, truly an emergency, it generally warrants a phone call at minimum. And I can't think of any organizations that will let you forget about a debt.

Red flag number two: Source

Oh look, it's the famous Apple spokesperson Sunny Me from 163.com. This is an easy, fast telltale for a ton of scams: unknown numbers, strange e-mails, or even pretending to be affiliated with a celebrity like in the previous screenshot. I don't know what Warren Buffett is up to these days, but I strongly doubt it involves texting strangers at random to get them to sign up for some new cryptocurrency deal.

Some more sophisticated scammers might try to impersonate loved ones or pretend to be an ordinary person. Dating apps are rife with fake profiles run by scammers looking to capitalize on lonely people. You might receive a text from an earnest stranger claiming to have the “wrong number,” only to attempt to become your friend with the end goal of convincing you to hand over some cash. How cruel!

You may consider offering non-financial alternatives and seeing how the person reacts as a test. If the response is to demand money or stop talking to you, you have your answer. It's okay to be frank with your money as well. If you would place conditions on lending a friend money in the real world, it is perfectly reasonable to expect Jenny from Tinder to give you a timeline on being paid back or receipts or to adhere to a $20 maximum gift. But generally speaking, I would strongly advise against giving money to anyone you haven't met in person.

When it comes to scammers impersonating loved ones, the quick and easy solution is to ask a question that the scammer won't know the answer to and can't squirm out of. If you're feeling unsure about a conversation, ask the other person for something that couldn't be easily found or guessed, like a favorite movie or a pet peeve. Scammers can find names and birthdays online, but only my real mom can talk about the daily activities of her goofy little pug with heartfelt conviction.

At the time of writing, AI callers lack several markers typical of a human phone call. You will never hear them take a deep breath or shuffle papers or hum. If you are talking to someone who sounds otherwise human but is unnaturally sterile, you might be talking to an AI.

Red flag number three: Presentation

Oh my stars and garters, what is all this nonsense? The United States Postal Service is a secret organization that specializes in being as unavailable as possible. USPS would never bother sending someone a bizarre PDF text message when they can just leave a note in your mailbox and then close for the inexplicable 3-day government holiday you didn't know about.

Jokes aside, government organizations and corporations alike generally strive to make their interactions with you as streamlined as possible. More steps and more information just means more confusion and a higher likelihood of angry consumers. Having you download a PDF that links you to some website where you put in a bunch of info is out of the question. Additionally, almost every entity has an FAQ page on its website that you can check if in doubt. Keeping with the USPS example, they have a website that explains common scams and even gives example photos.

Read scam messages very carefully. Even in the era of AI and mass scam attempts, I rarely see messages without language warning signs.

Obvious here: select a “Withdraw” method instead of withdrawal (even though it's used correctly on the pop up), “Was Successfully!” and “BANK CARD” (who calls it that? Just the one?).

Even the most skilled text scammers will often make mistakes that reveal they are not from where they claim to be. An example line from a scam e-mail I received a few months ago:

At this time, can you please advise a suitable hour Monday to Friday between 10:00am to 9:00pm AEDT than we can contact you or send your WhatsApp number for details on scheduled wire.

Think about how you would ask that question. “Can you give me a time between Monday and Friday when we can contact you” or maybe “Could you suggest a time between” if you were trying to be polite. Advise? No one would use it in this context. People who are using English as a second language will often make mistakes that English natives would never: forgetting articles before a noun; using verbs in the wrong places; choosing unfitting or obscure words instead of more common ones.

Conclusion

Scams are all over the place and they are likely to get worse before they get better. In the meantime, practice caution with all unknown messages. Take your time (and you have plenty of it) analyzing messages before making any decisions. Verify individuals by asking tailored questions. You can always go to the real version of a website and log in to see if you have any alerts or warnings instead of following links.

And if you're ever in doubt, err on the side of caution. It's better to get a scolding letter or even make a late payment than to have your bank account drained by scammers. Doubly so when you consider that reloading (the practice of targeting people who have already fallen for scams) is a popular tactic.

Be safe out there. And lastly, I'd like to give a big thank you to my brother for providing the scam samples for this article.

#tech #advice #readerquestion

Anyone who has interacted with a Christian in America is familiar with the phrase “God-fearing Christian.” What exactly is meant by fear in this context? Does God want his devout followers to be afraid of him? The Bible frequently mentions fearing God. According to some, the Bible contains more than 300 instances of this. For the purposes of answering these questions, I limited myself to some fifty different cases from both the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the New Testament. In pursuit of answers, I attempted to determine in every case whether the fear of God (or the Lord in some instances) mentioned in the verse came in the form of a command or simply as an idea within the author’s religious views. Additionally, I considered the Greek words that corresponded to the usage of “fear” in modern translations. For simplicity’s sake, I referenced the English Standard Version for the verse in its context and Strong’s Greek/Hebrew Concordances for its meaning. The fifty verses I selected that mention fearing God were drawn from the books of Joshua, 2nd Kings, Deuteronomy, Ecclesiastes, Exodus, Genesis, Job, Leviticus, Proverbs, and the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible as well as 1st Peter, Acts, Ephesians, Luke, Matthew, and Revelation from the New Testament. Broadly speaking, from what I found in my research, the overwhelming majority of the uses of fearing God appeared in the Hebrew Bible, and this remained the case in the verses I randomly selected to review.

By the numbers:

• 42/50 in the Hebrew Bible
• 39/50 referred to being fearful in the sense of reverence (Hebrew yare or yare' or yirah)
• 8/50 in the New Testament
• 8/50 (all in the NT) referred to being fearful in the sense of terror (Greek phobeó or phobos)
• 3/50 referred to being fearful in the sense of dread (Hebrew pachad)

All but three of the Hebrew Bible uses of fear held a connotation of reverence. To put this in terms that may be better understood by modern readers: imagine your favorite celebrity has unexpectedly arrived at your local hangout spot, say a coffee shop for example, and you eagerly approach them to get your picture taken with them. The fear of not knowing how they might respond coupled with your admiration of them is essentially the sort of reverential fear that the authors hoped to evoke in their readers. Likewise (and sticking with the coffee shop analogy), the other three instances in the Hebrew Bible use fear with a connotation of dread; in this scenario, you realize that your boss has also arrived at this café, but you are supposed to be at home on a sick day. Meanwhile, all eight of the New Testament uses of fear pertain to the typical meaning: to be afraid of something.

Researching the situations in which fear was used, I found that in six cases (all but one in Leviticus, the other in Revelation) God was directly commanding his followers to fear him. Similarly, Jesus commanded that God should be feared once in both Luke and Matthew. In twenty-seven instances, there was no command to fear given in the context of the verse. In the remaining fifteen verses, the respective authors issued a command to fear God.

So what about our question: does God want his devout followers to be afraid of him? The short answer is an emphatic yes. The big picture implied by the connotations of the Hebrew words used in the oldest manuscripts seems to indicate that God’s followers should have a reverential fear for their creator with a hint of dread at the Lord’s incredible power. The New Testament’s Greek words, however, suggest that God’s people should fear Him as they fear most things in their lives – sincerely and cautiously.

#bible #christianity #judaism #oldtestament #newtestament #readerquestion

Sources:

[1] Hebrew Concordance – https://biblehub.com/hebrew/ [2] Greek Concordance – https://biblehub.com/greek/

I've seen a lot of ads recently for dark web monitoring services. These companies throw out phrases like “cyber threats,” “bad actors,” and “scanning the deepest, darkest places.” They make it sound as though there's a gigantic underground crime network on the internet, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the opportunity to steal your credit card information. But is that true?

Layering the web

Before we get too far into this discussion, let's go over the three layers of the internet as popularly defined.

The surface web (or clearnet) consists of the places that are easily accessible, meaning that we can hop on any search engine and find them and access them with no problem. Sites like YouTube, MSN, Wikipedia, eBay – you get the point. If the internet were a city, these are your public parks, restaurants, and the like.

The deep web is made up of pages that require some level of permission to access and don't show up on search engines. You've almost certainly spent some time on the deep web – if you have an online bank account, e-mail address, or a portal for work or school, then you've been on the deep web. Sometimes people confuse the deep web and dark web, but they are different places. Returning to our city analogy, the deep web is like the inside of private residences. You can go inside if you have permission from the owner.

The dark web (or darknet) is also part of the deep web and not indexed by search engines, but separate in that you can't access it with a normal browser. There are several different sub-networks on the dark web. You may have heard of Tor, the most popular of such services, which is generally accessed via the Tor browser. This part of our city is the underground catacombs that aren't fully mapped and require specific gear to access (we may be in Europe now).

Anonymity

Depending on how your web browser is configured, it sends out information about you when you access a website. Primarily this information is used so that websites know what to show you: if you are on a cellphone it needs to load the mobile website; if you are in China the language should be Chinese; if the website is only for members of a specific country it checks to see if you are in that country. You may have seen this last one when browsing YouTube or Netflix; a message pops up that says something like “This content is unavailable in your region.”

It is possible to stay anonymous, however, by using tools like VPNs (virtual private networks) and/or specialized browsers to either fake the information or prevent it from being sent entirely. So where does that leave us?

A wretched hive of scum and villainy

You can in theory use the dark web to do innocent, wholesome things like exchange photos and talk to your friends without fear of government surveillance. There are blogs and forums and chat rooms on the dark web for regular conversation. Some large organizations like the BBC, Forbes, and Facebook (to name a few) have a presence on the dark web to allow users to browse their sites anonymously or share tips with journalists without government interference. That said, the vast majority of internet users don't really care that much about privacy or anonymity, so while you do end up with some people who just want to browse in private, you end up with criminals as well.

Even though there is crime on the dark web, it is often overstated. YouTubers and other internet celebrities love to make up stories about how they got on the dark web one time and saw a terrible horrible awful video of unspeakable things or downloaded a video game full of viruses and evil. There is little reason that either of these things would be on the darknet:

(1) the people who create/share things like that are doing so for shock value and have a much larger audience on the clearnet, and

(2) you can already easily find gore videos and virus filled programs on the clearnet.

I'm not saying that there aren't shock sites and the like on the dark web, only that their presence and extent are greatly exaggerated.

Much more notable on the dark web are the numerous sites dedicated to piracy, illegal pornography, and the purchase of illicit materials (drugs, guns, etc). Yes, you can really go on the internet and buy cocaine, though it is far from straightforward. Some of these pages are honeypots, fake websites set up to catch people trying to break the law. Various three-letter agencies have run operations on the darknet to infiltrate and break up organized crime groups, but enforcement is difficult. Other pages are scams, like the numerous murder-for-hire sites that will happily collect a few grand from unwitting visitors before vanishing.

Back to the monitoring bit

Beneath the traps, however, there are real criminal activities going on, some of which involve selling information stolen in data breaches. Cybersecurity researchers at Privacy Affairs have published price lists for data ranging from $1 (social media login info) to thousands (bank account info). And with the thousands of cybersecurity breaches that have happened in the past two decades, there is no shortage of information to be sold.

Despite this, I don't recommend dark web monitoring services. Why?

Well, for starters, the internet is international and criminals on the darknet are more tech savvy than average. Law enforcement in the United States has enough trouble prosecuting cyber crime at all – take a look at the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center statistics and you'll see that asset recovery in general doesn't have great odds, and those odds are even worse when you factor in international jurisdiction issues. And this is when people have lost large amounts of money – you can go ahead and kiss your stolen Facebook account goodbye as far as the police are concerned.

You might still be thinking “At least I would know that my data was stolen and put up for sale.” And you might, but remember how I said that federal agencies have a hard time keeping up with crime going on across the darknet? Agencies which have access to highly trained cybersecurity experts, lots of money, and an extensive history in internet operations? Private companies can use tools like data scrapers to check darknet sites for keywords or visit forums that are known to engage in the sale of illegally obtained data and ask around, but they can't force people to hand over information. If the seller has figured out that they're dealing with someone from a cybersecurity company or if the website is somehow inaccessible to those scrapers, then there's not much they can do. To further my point, here's a section from the EULA of a popular dark web monitoring service:

[...] the Company gives no warranty or undertaking and makes no representation of any kind that the Software will meet customer’s requirements, achieve any intended results, be compatible or work with any other software, applications, systems or services, operate without interruption, meet any availability, performance or reliability standards [...]

Maybe they'll find something, maybe they won't. But you don't have to waste money on a “maybe” service or wait for INTERPOL to raid a scam complex in Asia. You can be totally responsible for your data. Practice good cybersecurity habits, keep an eye on your accounts (particularly financial ones), use free credit monitoring if you have it. Change your passwords if you notice weird activity. Use two factor authentication (scammers overseas don't have your cellphone, hopefully).

Your data is out there – at this point, most people have been involved in at least one breach, if not many. That doesn't mean you should let the alarmists get to you so they can sell you something. There are billions of people on the internet and billions of leaked records, meaning someone first has to find or buy your specific information, hope that you haven't changed your information since it was leaked, hope that you won't notice them logging in, and hope that you have something to steal. As an individual, you are much more likely to fall victim to a scam than have a random person on the darknet obtain your bank account information.

In short: dark web monitoring? No. Good cyber hygiene? Yes.

Genealogy is all the rage these days, and DNA testing has made tracing family lines even more expansive than it used to be. How exactly is this accomplished though? How is genetic testing able to trace family lines back centuries? That has to do entirely with how our genomes are passed down to us.

Back to the Basics

Before discussing how families can be traced through genetic testing, first one must understand the basics of how genetics work. As you may remember from your high school biology courses, part of your genome is inherited from your mother and part from your father. The reality is a little more complicated than that.

To start, it all goes back to meiosis. Meiosis is the process by which gametes and zygotes are formed. These are the initial cells which will be fertilized to grow into new living beings.

Meiosis occurs in eight stages with Prophase I being the important stage for our discussion. During Prophase I, the chromosomes condense and are able to exchange genetic material. Meiosis then continues until Telophase II and cytokinesis. The end result of meiosis is is four daughter cells each with unique genetic material and half the number of chromosomes. When fertilization occurs, two of these daughter cells fuse to from the zygote which eventually becomes a fetus.

Assumptions versus Reality

So siblings should then share roughly 100% of their genetics with each other right? No.

Remember that exchange of genetic material in Prophase I of meiosis, that exchange happens differently each time that meiosis occurs. Due to that fact, full-blooded siblings share anywhere from 38-61% of their DNA with each other and 50% with the parent. That percentage decreases the further your family tree spreads.

Then how can genetics and DNA be used to trace your lineage through the centuries? The answer comes in the form of mitochondrial DNA.

What is mitochondrial DNA?

Mitochondrial DNA is DNA found in the mitochondria of cell. When the gametes are being formed through meiosis, the organelles (including the mitochondria) are also replicated. Unlike the chromosomes, however, the mitochondria is copied without that genetic exchange. This means that the mitochondria is inherited without change from the parent cell to the daughter cells minus potential mutations.

This mitochondrial DNA is then inherited directly from the mother to the child without change assuming no mutations arise during replication. Since this DNA is inherited directly from the mother to the child, your genetic lineage can then be traced through the centuries.

So while the DNA you inherit from your father is important for providing genetic variably and making you you, the DNA you inherited from your mother through her mitochondria allows you to trace your ancestry from your mother to her mother and so forth.

Persuasive advertising is arguably the most recognizable kind. That's the whole point, right? A business tells you why their product is great and you either buy it or don't. Maybe you see detergent for sale that says something along the lines of “30% stronger than leading brands,” and you either wholeheartedly agree or think it's baloney.

For me, the phrase “persuasive advertising” brings to mind those vintage advertisements from Sears catalogues and the like, the ones that feature a big image of the product crowded on all sides by lines and lines of text explaining each and every wonderful feature of the item in question. That's as simple as it gets: here's what the product looks like, here's why you should buy it.

– Oh boy, in store laundry demos! I can't wait!

On the other hand, you probably don't base your soda consumption habits on whether or not a particular type of bear enjoys them, yet Coca-Cola runs their famous polar bear ad campaign every year around Christmas. What gives? Why isn't the bear extolling the benefits of drinking a Coke? Why are cigarettes advertised by a camel with sunglasses? Who even is J.G. Wentworth and why is his phone number stuck in your head?

Brand recognition is one of the most powerful weapons in the marketing arsenal. Human beings in general prefer things that are familiar and safe. Consumer studies have repeatedly shown that people are more likely to buy products they recognize. Brand recognition has all sorts of benefits – consumers prefer familiar brands even in cases where other products are superior. Familiarity can even counteract bad reviews (to a degree). With all these things in mind we can see why consumer-brand relationship is a significant area for marketing researchers and explore alternative purposes for advertising.

Reminder Ads

These are advertisements like the aforementioned seasonal Coca-Cola ones. Everybody already knows about McDonald's, Ford, and Walmart. These companies have little to gain from spreading their names further and their customer bases are already so large that recruiting is difficult or even pointless. Die-hard haters aren't going to suddenly decide that Ford is better than Chevy or Walmart is ethical based on seeing a fifteen second ad. Instead, reminder ads just seek to maintain the brand's placement in your mind for next time you're out somewhere trying to make a decision.

Even people who don't regularly shop at big brands can be guilty of this in a pinch – for example, when traveling or trying to shop on a major holiday. Thoughts like “we can just stop at McDonald's” while in an unfamiliar city or “well, at least Walmart will be open” are the result of marketing efforts by companies to ensure you remember them and their reputation for consistency. That big restaurant billboard on the interstate isn't a plea for you to pull over – it's a reminder of what's there when you do. What would a big red sign with a yellow M tell you if you didn't recognize it?

Informative Ads

On a similar note, informative ads aren't necessarily trying to persuade, although they might end up doing so. Think Play-doh's famous “Fun to play with, not to eat!” slogan. Recent ads for fast food chains have also featured this a great deal as they fight inflation-driven customer decline. The appeal isn't to non-customers, but existing ones: come back or come more often, we changed something. The Pepto-Bismol jingle is yet another fantastic example – quite literally just helping you memorize the product's functionality. They can't persuade you to buy a product you don't need, but when you're feeling ill and wonder what medication you need for your symptoms you already have the information memorized in convenient musical format.

Sometimes companies are required to disclose certain information (e.g. the surgeon general's warning on cigarettes). They might elect to do this in the form of an advertisement and use the warning to their advantage. Horror film producers and video game studios have used this tactic by plastering their products with lines like “X-RATED AND ANIMATED” or “BANNED IN AUSTRALIA,” warnings which, while not strictly persuasive, are certainly tempting to a particular variety of consumer.

Image-related Ads

Brand image is hugely important. People are obviously more likely to buy products from brands that match their self image and values, so much so that people often post compilations of stereotypes as memes (“starter packs”). Ray-Ban has no law enforcement relationship, yet wear a pair of their sunglasses atop your shaved head and the questions will start. Products can change how people view themselves and signal to others how they wish to be viewed.

This phenomenon is so strong that Axe body spray creator Unilever had to dial back their nerd-to-sexy campaign because Axe was becoming associated with unwashed weirdos and losing its appeal. Companies work to cultivate their brand image for the purpose of maintaining good customer relationships and thus good sales, and ads of this variety are probably not persuading anyone of anything. Have you ever seen one of those really avant-garde ads for luxury fashion or fragrance brands?

– L◆U◆X◆U◆R◆Y

I don't really get them either. That's okay though, because I'm not the target audience. Like many other members of Gen Z, I value sustainability. Brands instead prefer to target people like me by designing products to appear eco-friendly (but product design is an article for another time). In the meantime, ask yourself when you see an ad somewhere what its purpose is and who it's targeting – there are more answers than you might think.

#marketing #advertising #informative

It comes as a surprise to some people as they explore the history of the Christian and Jewish faiths that these traditions have not always held monotheistic views – strictly believing that only one god exists and that god is the Lord, God. Their surprise is wholly justified, as both of these traditions have held these beliefs for many centuries at this point. That said, Judaism, and later Christianity, struggled internally to come to consensus, and these evolving perspectives help paint a picture of when and how these faiths came to accept their modern-day beliefs. Before exploring the history of these changes, some terms need clarification. Likewise, polytheism refers to a belief in many gods. Henotheism exists in between these two, and this refers to the belief in the existence and worship of multiple deities, specifically associated with the idea of a singular, supreme god. [1] Another closely related term, monolatry, refers to “the worship of a single deity (possibly while believing in the existence of others).” [2]

Biblical indications of monolatry exist within some of the earliest books of the Bible. For example, 1 Kings 18:27 indicates that Elijah recognized the existence of the Baalists’ god while he demonstrated the supremacy of his god, the Lord: “And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.’” Similarly, God declared his displeasure to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 17:3 with regard to his followers following other gods: “...and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden.” Also, Joshua proclaimed to the Israelites in Joshua 24:14, “‘Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.’”

Jewish tradition tended towards monolatry until the post-exilic period after 539 BCE (that is, after their exile under the Babylonians). [3] Scholars have posited that the physical crises experienced by Jewish people in this time period caused the evolution of their beliefs into monotheism. Whether from the major crisis of the exile or from a series of crises leading up to the exile, the result remained the same – the Israelites of the post-exilic period adopted monotheism. [4]

Centuries later with the arrival of the early Christian faith, debate began anew. While the idea of trinitarianism holds the majority view by modern Christians, this has not always been the case. Within the first couple centuries of the religion’s birth, substantial debate arose over the nation of Jesus and his place within the godhead. One early Christian presbyter and ascetic, Arius (c. 250-336 CE) suggested an early form of unitarianism (a singular god entity). The basic belief was that “the uniqueness of God, who is alone self-existent (not dependent for its existence on anything else) and immutable; the Son, who is not self-existent, cannot therefore be the self-existent and immutable God. Because the Godhead is unique, it cannot be shared or communicated. Because the Godhead is immutable, the Son, who is mutable, must, therefore, be deemed a creature who has been called into existence out of nothing and has had a beginning. Moreover, the Son can have no direct knowledge of the Father, since the Son is finite and of a different order of existence.” [5]

Comparably, other early Christians subscribed to the belief that Jesus did not truly exist as a human, rather he was a form of illusion. Within this concept existed two branches, one held that “Jesus’ body was a phantasm,” and the other believed that “Jesus was a real flesh-and-blood human. But Christ was a separate person, a divine being who, as God, could not experience pain and death.” [6] These latter docetics believed that the divine Christ entered Jesus during his baptism in the form of a dove and later departed from him at his death on the cross.

By the time of the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, the vast majority of Christian leaders already held the beliefs that they expressed in the Nicene Creed and unequivocally demonstrated their trinitarian views:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down, and became incarnate and became man, and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and dead, And in the Holy Spirit. But as for those who say, There was when He was not, and, Before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or created, or is subject to alteration or change – these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes. [7]

In short, the Jewish faith largely shifted from quasi-pluralistic beliefs in their earliest recorded texts into a strict monotheism after their exile in Bablyon in the late 6th century BCE, and the Christian faith rapidly developed a trinitarian, monotheistic system of belief within the first couple centuries after Christ’s death.

#bible #christianity #newtestament #judaism #oldtestament

Sources:

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/henotheism.

[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/monolatry.

[3] Wiley Blackwell, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Ancient Israel, edited by Susan Niditch (Hoboken, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2016), 263.

[4] Robert Karl Gnuse, No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel (Sheffield, Great Britain: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 215.

[5] Britannica Editors, “Arianism,” Encyclopedia Brittanica, accessed March 21, 2026, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arianism.

[6] Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 15.

[7] “THE CREED OF NICAEA – AGREED AT THE COUNCIL IN 325,” Early Church Texts, https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm.

Overton County was named in honor of Nashville judge John Overton when the state of Tennessee formed it out of land that previously belonged to Jackson County on September 12, 1806 with the passage of the Private Acts of 1806, Chapter 27. [1] “With an area of 434 square miles, the newly created county encompassed all of what is now Fentress County, as well as portions of Clay, Putnam, Cumberland and Scott Counties.” [2] However, this is not where the county’s story begins.

People have inhabited what is today Tennessee since pre-history, dating back to at least 10000 BCE. [3] The Natives inhabited these lands until the arrival of Europeans to the region in mid 16th century. During his expedition in 1539-1541, Hernando de Soto and his conquistadors traveled through what would later become East Tennessee. [4] Over the following decades and centuries, Europeans made intermittent contact with the local Native tribes, but they did not establish settlements at those times.

The land that later constituted Overton county passed through different tribes’ control over this time, eventually settling under the domain of the Cherokee tribe. Cherokee relations with the British who occupied the coastal lands to the east of the Appalachian Mountains started peaceably but eventually degraded into animosity. As a result, war broke out between the two in 1760, and the Cherokee forced the British that had occupied Fort Loudon in modern-day Monroe County to flee east. Consequently, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbid settlement in Tennessee and established it as an Indian Reserve. [5] Against this order, the first white settlers started to move into the Watauga, Nolichucky, and Holston areas of Tennessee in 1768 (though they believed they had not left Virginia). In May 1772, these settlers established a 10-year lease contract with the Cherokee. They drafted a constitution and formed their own government at Sycamore Shoals (near modern-day Elizabethton, TN) called the Watauga Association. [6]

In 1775, land speculator Richard Henderson and his fellow investors struck a land purchase deal with the Cherokee known as the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals (or the Transylvania Purchase.) As part of this deal, Henderson and company acquired the land associated with the Path Grant and the Great Grant, which included the site of modern Nashville. [7] Henderson attempted to formalize this purchase through the Virginia legislature, but they ultimately refused his lobbying. In 1776, North Carolina adopted its first State Constitution and established the Washington District to encompass the state’s most westerly lands. These lands eventually evolved into Washington County in 1777. In December of 1776, Virginia annexed the Transylvania settlements, except for those in modern Middle Tennessee. Henderson attempted to establish a settlement at Nashborough, but his claims here fell through as well. In 1783, North Carolina took possession of this region and established the area as the North Carolina Military District. [7] In 1784, residents of the former Washington County created the State of Franklin, although it never received any legal recognition. [8]

Following the American Revolution, North Carolina’s possession of what is now Tennessee served as means to pay for the wartime services of men in the Continental Line. [8] Ultimately, Tennessee would arise as the Union’s 16th state on June 12, 1796. At this time, modern Overton fell within the boundaries of Sumner County. However, occupation by white settlers into modern Overton County appeared decades earlier. Notably, this area served as a hunting preserve by the local Native Americans, and they had friendly relations with explorers.

A group of Long Hunters traveled to the area in 1763, and they encamped for a period of time at the current site of Waterloo along Spring Creek and later at Roaring River. Some of these explorers decided to remain in the area. One of these settlers, Robert Crockett, later died in an ambush in the Oak Hill area in 1769. Purportedly, he was the first white man to die in Middle Tennessee. [2]

In 1797, recent graduate of Dartmouth law school, Dr. Moses Fisk, established a settlement at Hilham, which he believed was the geographical center of the globe. He envisioned four roads crossing through the community in the major compass directions, hoping to establish a major city in the wilderness of Appalachia. Around the same time, many American Revolution veterans received land grants from the federal government and thus moved into the area. In 1799 Colonel Stephen Copland established a settlement near modern-day Monroe, which would serve as the county’s first seat. A few years later in 1799, a reorganization of county boundaries brought Overton under the jurisdiction of Smith County, where it remained until 1801 with the formation of Jackson County. Then, between 1803 and 1806, Virginia-born lawyer, jurist, banker, and political figure John Overton acted as an agent on behalf of Tennessee in negotiations with North Carolina over land rights. Eventually, Overton successfully bargained for Tennessee to cede most of its western territory to the United States, and required Tennessee to recognize the land warrants issued by North Carolina in order to obtain the title to all remaining land within its boundary. [9] In recognition for his efforts, the eventual formation of a new county bore his name. Though the border differed slightly from the modern-day one, the county has largely retained its initial shape over the last 220 years, aside from relatively minor land disputes.

#americanhistory #history #tennessee #overton

Sources: [1] “Acts of 1806 (2nd Sess.) Chapter 27,” County Technical Assistance Service, Institute for Public Service, https://www.ctas.tennessee.edu/private-acts/acts-1806-2nd-sess-chapter-27.

[2] Michael E. Birdwell, “Overton County.” Tennessee Encyclopedia. https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/overton-county.

[3] “Archaeology & the Native Peoples of Tennessee: Paleoindian Period – 10,000+ to 8000 BC.” The University of Tenneessee-Knoxville Frank H. MccClung Museum. https://web.archive.org/web/20120418140517/http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/permanent/native/paleoindian.shtml.

[4] David H. Dye, “Soto Expedition,” Tennessee Encyclopedia, https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/soto-expedition.

[5] “Proclamation of 1763,” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/event/Proclamation-of-1763.

[6] W. Calvin Dickinson, “Watauga Association,” Tennessee Encyclopedia, https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/watauga-association.

[7] Michael Toomey, “ Transylvania Purchase,” Tennessee Encyclopedia, https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/transylvania-purchase.

[8] “EARLY TENNESSEE LAND RECORDS, 1773-1922, Records of the Land Office, State of Tennessee. Records of the Board of Land Commissioners, RECORD GROUP 50,” https://sos-tn-gov-files.tnsosfiles.com/forms/EARLY_TENNESSEE_LAND_RECORDS_1773-1922.pdf, 12.

[9] Theodore Brown Jr., “John Overton,” Tennessee Encyclopedia, https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/john-overton.

The year is 1997. It is a May afternoon in New York City and in the Equitable Center on Seventh Avenue a chess match is taking place. On one side, world champion chess player Garry Kasparov makes the opening move. On the other, a representative from IBM waits to make a move on behalf of the company's supercomputer, Deep Blue. The game is a rematch – Kasparov had beaten the machine the prior year – but this time, IBM has implemented some upgrades.

The match is intense, and the two sides stay tied until the final round. Kasparov decides to try a risky strategy to throw the computer off but ultimately fails, losing the match in just over an hour. The world is shocked. Artificial intelligence (albeit a comparatively primitive form) has surpassed human intelligence in a highly publicized event. Now, almost thirty years later, humans stand no chance against chess programs. Grandmaster players and world champions of the present day don't even bother trying to beat computers. In one experiment, participants mistakenly identified GPT-4.5 as a human 73% of the time after a five minute conversation. In another, patients consistently rated an AI's text responses as being more empathetic than those written by human physicians. Some people have even begun to explore friendships and romantic relationships with chatbots.

The rapid progress of computing in the 2000s has led to an equally explosive growth in the various types of artificial intelligence. But what exactly is AI? Let's dive in.

There is a lot of philosophical debate about intelligence.

You could easily write an entire dissertation on the nature of intelligence and still have an entire follow-up book series afterwards. Philosophers have debated what exactly intelligence, consciousness, and thought are and how they should be defined for eons – I'm not kidding, go look up “philosophy of mind” and spend the rest of your day reading about it, if you like. This debate doesn't stop at philosophy, though. There isn't exactly a concise definition in computer science, either.

For the purposes of this article we will borrow the International Organization for Standardization's definition:

an engineered system that generates outputs such as content, forecasts, recommendations, or decisions for a given set of human‑defined objectives, and can operate with varying levels of automation

AI isn't new

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, computer scientists have been producing various forms of artificial intelligence for decades. Deep Blue was AI according to the definition above – it could use defined objectives (the rules of chess and the given moves) and output a decision (its choice of move) and do so in an automated manner. Search engines meet this definition. 2000s kids might remember Cleverbot, and game show fans may recall the episode of Jeopardy! featuring IBM's Watson.

All these things and many more meet the criteria for AI, all the way back to the 1950s when the first chess programs were written. 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in 1968, and HAL 9000 has lived in the public imagination as a possible doomsday instigator ever since. So why has AI suddenly exploded across the world?

Generative artificial intelligence

I won't get too far into technical details here – to precisely define the techniques that go into AI, I would need to also explain a lot of high level logical and mathematical concepts. In a very simplified explanation: over the last decade or so, we have developed technology that allows computers to utilize algorithms for the purpose of “learning.” Imagine playing through the first level of an arcade game of your choice. You probably didn't grab the manual and read up on how the game worked and plan out some strategies.

More than likely, you grabbed the joystick and jumped right in. When you fell into a pit, got cornered by a ghost, or failed to dodge an obstacle, you learned a new rule. Each time the game started over, you learned a little more: I need to have some rings to stay alive; the red ghost stays right behind me; if I press ← ← → as Raiden by rolling my thumb across the d-pad really quickly I can cheat straight to Kintaro without my opponents having a chance to recover (thanks little bro).

This is essentially what people mean when they talking about training an AI model. We can give a system big sets of data and teach it how to evaluate those datasets by providing feedback on its responses. The exact methods on how to do this vary, but in short, it's a computerized version of the above. This is what the color red looks like, select things that are red. Yes. Yes. No. No. Yes. The AI can then replicate what it has “learned,” leading us to the “generative” part. Now that it can identify what red is, it can determine whether or not something is red and produce an appropriate replication. It also refines itself as it collects more data, similar to the way we learn – only it doesn't have to worry about human issues like forgetting or becoming confused, and it can process large amounts of data much faster than you. That brings us to our next point:

Large language models (LLMs)

You may have heard this term – or the related GPT, short for generative pre-trained transformers – used to describe the chatbots proliferating the internet. These models are trained on large datasets like books or online discussions and then cleaned up by having bad data removed and safeguards installed. Or, in the case of Microsoft's Tay, naively expected to learn good things from Twitter. Either way, the models can then refer back to the data they have studied to generate a response.

For an example, I asked a few search LLMs: “is the difference between a trebuchet and a catapult important?” Take a second to think about how you would answer that question. Each of the three I asked said “yes” and proceeded to launch into great detail about how the two differ and why that is historically significant. They provide similar responses to “is the difference between a grilled cheese and a melt important.” These topics are examples of something that is highly discussed online but I daresay would be found boring by most people (thank the heavens I haven't allowed comments on this site).

This is an important point and one I wish to emphasize. The models are not truly thinking in the sense that humans are. To illustrate my point: what would you do if I asked you to drawn a clock with the hands at 3:15? Well, generative AI has a breakdown. The model does not understand what the clock is the way that a human does; it does not know that squiggly, fancy looking black lines are hands or that the small hand points to the hour and the big one the minute. Thus, it cannot extrapolate and successfully create an accurate clock. A similar issue arose a while back with wine glasses – GPT programs could not depict an overflowing wine glass because the internet overwhelmingly has pictures of half-full ones.

The way these models are programmed can, however, lead to a phenomenon called hallucination. Sometimes for one reason or another generative AI will recognize a pattern where none exists or experience an issue with its programming. This can lead to the production of false results or misinformation – try asking an LLM for a highly specific book or movie recommendation and you'll find that they often invent fake titles to meet your specifications.

Why some people are angry

I won't get into the ethical debate about learning from other people's work or plagiarism, but you should be aware that it exists. A few weeks ago I answered an extremely niche question for a user on the internet involving lost media. Imagine my surprise when, later that afternoon while revisiting the topic, I used Google to search for more information and was given parts of my own answer in the AI summary! The lost media in question was so obscure that my response on a public forum became the foundation for the AI's response – you can imagine why this would be upsetting for some individuals.

And herein lays another major issue with generative AI systems: they are only as good as the data that composes them. Take the case of poor Tay (Microsoft's failed chatbot mentioned above): in less than 48 hours Twitter transformed her from an earnest teenager to a racist, inflammatory Holocaust denier with disdain for Ted Cruz. Even a decade later LLMs are running into similar issues, forcing their developers to implement safeguards against certain behaviors by having them avoid certain topics or provide hard-coded responses. There are concerns among psychologists about the impact human-computer relationships will have, and some companies have experienced major issues due to AI-related mistakes or implemented it for dystopian purposes like monitoring whether or not employees are being friendly enough.

Lastly, the high amount of computer power required for even simple LLM requests has led to the production of giant facilities that are bad for the environment in all kinds of ways, and sometimes this cost is for bizarre or pointless reasons – like simulating a conversation with your imaginary girlfriend who is also an anime dragon princess.

But it isn't all bad.

AI is showing promising results in a lot of areas. AI models can detect some diseases from scans more accurately and earlier than doctors. It allows researchers in many fields to automate boring, repetitive tasks and analyze tons of data at scale. Despite the concerns from therapists, many individuals have reported positive mental health experiences with chatbots – people with anxiety can roleplay conversations without the fear of embarrassment, for example. As a supplemental tool, AI can give children feedback on their homework responses and explain concepts in depth as needed on an individual level.

Like so many other phenomena in computing, AI will be used for purposes noble and deplorable. It will be loved and hated, eagerly embraced and feared. Regardless of how you feel about it, I hope that you found this article helpful and informative and learned a little something, even if it was only how to cheat at Mortal Kombat II.

#computing #ai #tech #explanation

If you are from North America or have visited the Eastern United States and Canada, you are probably aware of the mountain range known as the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachian Mountains currently stretch from the island of Newfoundland in Canada all the way down to Central Alabama in the United States spanning 2,050 miles (3,300 km). While this mountain range is not as tall as other mountain ranges in the world, it is significantly older than both the Rocky Mountains and the Himalayan Mountains.

The age of the Appalachian Mountain range varies due to different parts of the range forming at different times. The oldest part of the Appalachian Mountain range formed before the Cambrian roughly 1-1.2 billion years ago. While the youngest parts of the range finished forming during the Jurassic period with the opening of the Atlantic Ocean roughly 144 million years ago. It is those pre-Cambrian ranges we will be focusing on for this discussion.

Formation of Mountains and Supercontinents

Before discussing how the Appalachian Mountains formed, we need to discuss how mountain ranges form in general. As you may remember from geology classes, the continents are not just floating around the ocean. They are on layers of rocks called tectonic plates. These tectonic plates rest on top of a partially molten layer of rock and are able to move due to the heat from this molten layer. As these tectonic plates slide against each other, they can cause earthquakes; however, when these plates collide with each other, they can form mountain ranges. This occurs when two continental plates collide, and the land in between the two plates is pushed upwards creating mountains.

The first continental collisions which formed parts of the Appalachian Mountains occurred with the formation of the supercontinent, Rodinia. During part of the formation of this supercontinent roughly 1 billion years ago, the continents of Laurentia (containing land that would become North America) and another continent, potentially Amazonia (part of what would become South American) collided. This collision formed parts of the Appalachian Mountains through the Grenville orogeny [1]. The parts of the Appalachian Mountain range formed by this collision were as follows: “the northern Long Range of Newfoundland, The Green Mountains of Vermont, The Berkshire Highlands of Massachusetts, the Hudson Highlands of New York and their extension across New Jersey into the Reading Hills of Pennsylvania, the Mine Ridge-Honeybrook uplift of Pennsylvania, and the South Mountain-Blue Ridge uplift extending from Maryland across Virginia into North Carolina and Tennessee.” [2] The supercontinent of Rodinia would eventually break up through the continental rifting which separated the supercontinent into at least two continents: Laurentia and Gondwana [3] by the Cambrian period, although there is still debate about how exactly Rodinia broke up and what exactly happened next.

Older than Bones?

Why then claim that the formation of the earliest parts of the Appalachian Mountains are older than bones? That is because the earliest signs of multicellular animals paleoarchaeologists have found are from small sea creatures known as the Ediacaran biota. This period of time known as the Ediacaran period began 635 million years ago and lasted until the beginning of the next period of time 541 million years ago: the Cambrian period. The Cambrian period is most well-known for the Cambrian Explosion where life evolved and diversified into many different forms which had never been seen before. This is also the period in which calcium carbonate shells first evolved [4]. The advent of a calcium carbonate shell paved the way for animals to develop exoskeletons and eventually bones. This process all started around 541-500 million years ago well after the formation and breakup of Rodinia.

So are the Appalachian mountains older than bones? The parts of the mountain range that formed a billion years ago when Rodinia formed are certainly older than bones. The story of the formation of the Appalachian Mountain range does not end with the breakup of Rodinia. There would be a few more major collisions in her future.

First, Laurentia would collide with the continents of Avalonia and Baltica to form Laurussia during the Silurian Period [5]. The continents of Laurussia and Gondwana then slowly began their journey towards each other once again eventually forming Pangaea. This collision during the late Carboniferous period would cause the final formation of the Appalachian Mountains known as part of the Central Pangaean Mountains. Finally with the break-up of Pangaea during the Triassic period, the Appalachian Mountains stayed on the North American continent and over millions of years became the mountains we know today.

1. Faill, R.T. (1997) A geologic history of the north-central Appalachians; part 1, orogenesis from the Mesoproterozoic through the taconic orogeny: American Journal of Science, v. 297, no. 6, p. 551–619, doi: 10.2475/ajs.297.6.551.
2. Rodgers, J. (1967) Chronology of Tectonic Movements in the Appalachian Region of Eastern North America: American Journal of Science, v. 265, p. 408-427.
3. Z.X Li, S.V. Bogdanova, A.S. Collins, A. Davidson, B. De Waele, R.E. Ernst,I.C.W. Fitzsimons, R.A. Fuck, D.P Gladkochub, J. Jacobs, K.E. Karlstrom, S. Lu, L.M. Natapov, V. Pease, S.A. Pisarevsky, K. Thrane, V. Vernikovsky (2008) Assembly, configuration, and break-up history of Rodinia: A synthesis, Precambrian Research, v. 160, no. 1-2, pg. 179-210. doi: 10.1016/j.precamres.2007.04.021
4. Darja Obradovic Wanger & Per Aspenberg (2011) Where did bone come from?, Acta Orthopaedica, 82:4, 393-398, doi: 10.3109/17453674.2011.588861
5. W. S. McKerrow, C. Mac Niocaill, P. E. Ahlberg, G. Clayton, C.J Cleal, and R.M.C. Eagar (2000). The Late Palaeozoic relations between Gondwana and Laurussia, Geological Society, v. 179, p, 9-20. doi: 10.1144/GSL.SP.2000.179.01.03

“What's the easiest user friendly computer for older people?”

If you ask any tech geek this question, their reply to you will almost certainly include “what are you using it for?”

So let's break that down. All listed prices are assuming that you're buying a used or refurbished device – new devices will obviously cost much more.

Just browsing the internet

If you are the kind of person who only uses your computer to browse classmates' obituaries and read Yahoo! News, I recommend a chromebook. You can buy them used/refurbished online for cheap, most have an SSD and boot up quickly, and they sort of “just work.” Many models are designed for use in an educational setting and thus can take a beating.

Chromebook

• Price Range: ~ $80 to $200
• Operating system: ChromeOS
• Profile: Small, lightweight, durable
• Downsides: Low power, unable to run non-ChromeOS apps

Simple app requirements

If you use your computer for tasks like playing games, browsing popular sites (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok), and reading e-books, I recommend an iPad. While Android-based tablets are a similar option and can be cheaper, the most tech-illiterate individuals will want to stick with Apple for their absolute ease of use and higher level of security.

iPad/[Android Tablet]

• Price Range: ~ $100 to $300 [$50 to $200]
• Operating system: iPadOS [Android]
• Profile: Small, lightweight
• Downsides: Low power, fragile, faster-than-average obsolescence

Working at home

If your computer needs to be equipped with software like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, or Zoom, you'll need something a little beefier than the previous options. Here you'll actually need to start looking at the specifications listed in a listing's description. There's a lot of back-and-forth about which manufacturers make the best computers (Lenovo, HP, Dell, etc), but in my humble opinion, much of this talk is overblown. Every manufacturer has their own pros and cons; you should focus more on a desktop that looks and feels comfortable to you.

Desktop Specifications

• Operating System: I'm not a fan of Windows for many reasons, but it is the king of workplace computing, and you'll want to make sure your PC comes with the appropriate version installed (as of writing, that is Windows 11).
• RAM: Look for something with at least 8 GB of RAM. Nice cell phones today have at least this much, for reference. 16+ will give you a comfortable amount of processing power so that everything runs smoothly.
• Processor: Around 3.5 GHz is sufficient for most office use, definitely no less than 2.5 GHz.
• Storage: SSDs are faster to boot up and more durable than the older HDDs. Unless you need a ton of cheap storage for some reason, I recommend a PC with at least a 500 GB SSD, but definitely no less than 250. You can always buy portable storage later if you need more.
• Accessories: Check to make sure the PC has any additional features you need, such as Bluetooth connectivity or a disk drive.

Expect the above computer to run at least $300 refurbished, possibly much more depending on how high your specification requirements are. Windows isn't exactly what I'd call “user-friendly,” but it will at least be familiar for most users.

Buying the computer

Online shopping sites like eBay and Amazon are fine places to buy used PCs, and you can easily read user reviews and browse specifications. If you insist on buying one in person, be sure to go in with an idea of what you want and stand your ground. Brick-and-mortar electronics stores may allow you to see the product in person, but they prey on the uninformed, and if you go to somewhere like Best Buy you should expect to be pushed toward buying more than you need or misled about the products. Prices will also be higher than online equivalents.

Happy hunting!

#readerquestion #tech #shopping

Practitioners of many religious traditions have one or more powerful entities with which they associate the machinations of the world or the powerful forces within the world. These beings are ordinarily called gods in Western discourse of religion. Christianity is no exception to this practice, although it does muddy the waters to outside interpreters. In the Christian faith, there is only one God, but this God also has a divine son – Jesus, as well as a divine spirit – the Holy Spirit. A majority of Christians subscribe to the idea of a trifecta God, that is to say that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are coeternal (all three existed before time and are eternal) and cosubstantial (all three are of the same substance, yet different in aspects) divine persons; this belief is called Trinitarianism.[1] In contrast, Unitarian Christians affirm that God is singular and unique in his role. Consequently, Jesus is not equal to God, nor is the Holy Spirit.

Christians can set aside differences in the specifics of the nature of the godhead and agree that there is a God who created the Universe. However, anyone who has ever read from the Bible knows that many names and titles are used throughout the text to refer to the divine creator. Each of these names and titles hold unique meanings that reveal the history of the Christian and Jewish faiths, and exploring these will enhance one’s understanding of the totality of God as presented across the Bible – first in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament. No details will be offered regarding the English translations of God’s names, such as God, Lord, the Father, etc.

The names and titles of God present in the Tanakh (Old Testament) showcase the foundational understanding of God as he reveals himself to his followers. Perhaps the most widely known name, YHWH, is also the most common iteration to appear in the Tanakh. This name, also referred to as the Tetragrammaton (named for its composition of four constants), was the one which was revealed to Moses in Exodus. [2] YHWH evidently resembles the third person singular imperfect form of a verb, which means “to be;” this implies YHWH means “He is” or “He will be” or even at a deeper level “to live” or “to breath.” [3] This goes on to impart the idea that God of the Israelites was unique among contemporary gods of their neighbors in that he was and is a living god, the “author of life.” [2]

The next most common name associated with God is Elohim. [2] This name has a complex and largely unknown origin, but some scholars suggest it originated from an old Arabic verb alih, which may mean the name would translate as “He who is the object of fear or reverence,” but there is no certain answer. [2]

A similar name, El, is present in the Tanakh. This title, like Elohim, was used outside of early Jewish traditions in those of other neighboring nations to refer to other deities. It simply means “God,” and it is often used in conjunction with another word, such as in another name for God, El ‘Elyon (“most high God”). [2] Another case, El Shaddai, is used frequently in the Book of Job. Shaddai refers to God as “the Almighty,” but the root word’s meaning imparts a translation of “devastator” or “destroyer.” [2] This may suggest that the author of Job wanted to convey God as a being of unspeakable power and used this name to that end.

Other common names for God in the Tanakh are Adonai, meaning “my Lord,” and Ba’al, which worked as an equivalent to YHWH but also served as an element in compound names like Jerubbaal. [2] Comparably, YHWH and Elohim often appear alongside another name for God, Ẓeba'ot (“hosts,”) such as YHWH Elohe Ẓeba'ot (“YHWH God of Hosts.”) [2]

The point of the matter is that the God of the Tanakh cannot be simply reduced to anything quite as simplistic as “God” or “Lord” without the loss of the powerful, historical roots of the deity of the Christian and Jewish faiths. Foregoing the exceedingly prevalent forms like YHWH for the generalized God deprives the believer of the depth of the textual meanings behind God’s names.

For brevity’s sake, I will include a list of some of the names for God found in the Tanakh instead of detailing them at length before continuing to the New Testament.

Table 1 [4]

Unlike the Tanakh, the New Testament was authored largely in Greek, and the names and titles of God used reflect Greek traditions instead of Hebrew ones. The most common name found in the New Testament is Theos, which was the translation of the Hebrew name Elohim into Greek. Theos was usually used to refer to God the Father. Similarly, the name Kyrios, meaning “lord” or “master,” frequently appears to refer to God in a similar fashion to the Hebrew Adonai, but it is also used at times to refer to Jesus.

Due to the complexity of the various Greek names used to refer to God as a single entity or as a dual meaning to refer to the Father or Jesus, I will provide a list that will share a few of the most common, least ambiguous names used in the New Testament.

Table 2 [4]

#bible #christianity #judaism #oldtestament #newtestament #readerquestion

[1] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/christian-denominations-by-the-numbers.html

[2] https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11305-names-of-god

[3 ] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh

[4] https://www.bartehrman.com/names-of-god

The story of Jonah is one of the most commonly retold biblical stories in many circles, particularly to Sunday School classes. The Book of Jonah is oftentimes interpreted through a strictly metaphorical lens, but a sizable group considers the whole of it as a literal history. Regardless of the story’s historical reality, readers have commonly misunderstood the passage of Jonah being eaten. The popular depiction of this scene, especially in art, suggests a whale swallowed Jonah. Although this interpretation is common, there is no textual evidence to imply this case. The debate over this detail is complex and longstanding. To provide clarification for what the text can impart, it is necessary to review the original Hebrew text, the later translation into Greek, and the themes of the story as a whole.

In the oldest available Hebrew manuscripts of the Book of Jonah, the scene of Jonah being swallowed uses the word הַדָּ֔ג (had·dāḡ), meaning “of the fish.” [1] This translation merely informs the reader that the creature that swallowed him was a fish, not a whale or other aquatic animal. We know this because there were words to describe these other creatures in use in other places in the Bible, such as תַּנִּין (tannin) meaning “dragon, serpent, sea monster” and לִוְיָתָן (Livyathan) meaning “Leviathan... a wreathed animal, a serpent, dragon.” [2]

The Hebrew text alone does not fully attest to our understanding of the passage, but it does provide a strong foundation. This is strengthened through the interpretation of the story in the Greek Septuagint. The translators used the word κῆτος (kētos), which means “a sea monster, huge sea fish, whale.” [3] While this word could be used to mean a whale, it did not serve this purpose in Jonah. The Greek-Hebrew concordance of the Bible reveals that kētos was used only in parallel with the Hebrew dāḡ and tannin. Additionally, Greek writers did not use kētosto strictly refer to any one type of sea creature, rather it was used to broadly describe any large sea creature. [3]

Through the knowledge of the translation history of the verses in Jonah, a clearer vision of the story’s themes can take shape. The most evident themes revealed throughout the Book of Jonah are repentance, obedience, and God’s mercy. Briefly, the elements of the story suggest its authorship dated to around the 8th century BCE, during which Israel and Judah were under the control of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. [4] Consequently, God’s followers were exiled from their homeland and sought divine intervention to return to their lands. The community’s desires are reflected in the themes of the story. The Israelites sought to repent for their perceived transgressions against God and worked to obediently follow God’s law in order to earn God’s mercy, thus in the story the Ninevites earn the mercy of God thanks to Jonah’s message of repentance and obedience.

#bible #christianity #judaism #oldtestament #readerquestion

[1] https://biblehub.com/hebrew/haddag_1709.htm

[2] https://biblehub.com/hebrew/8577.htm ; https://biblehub.com/hebrew/3882.htm

[3] https://biblehub.com/greek/2785.htm

[4] https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1170/the-book-of-jonah/